


Meeting Siddhartha

by jaggedmountains



Category: Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Genre: Chicken Soup, Gen, Grocery Store
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:16:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5488475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaggedmountains/pseuds/jaggedmountains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>got this account and wanted to post something ??? it was a school prompt to write about meeting siddhartha somewhere. I meet Siddhartha in New Season's and we ask each other questions because that was the requirements the teacher gave us. Buddhism is about big ideas, but mostly about little things like soup and sweaters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting Siddhartha

I met Siddhartha in the grocery store. It was Sunday evening, and I was wearing my favorite sweater and worrying about homework. I didn’t realize it was him until he leaned past me to select a lime, brown hands tripping over green skins, small frame calm in the midst of the busy store. I hadn’t realized he would be so small, but it made sense; he’d lived thousands of years ago. 

I put down the onion I was holding. 

“You’re Siddhartha.” It wasn’t a question, and sounded stupid immediately, but he didn’t seem to notice.

He looked slightly surprised, I thought maybe to be recognized as a person. “Yes.” His eyes were young and old, and they moved side to side as if to take in more of whatever he was seeing. 

There was a silence as my brain began processing what I already knew. Siddhartha continued picking through the limes. He turned over each one, looking for brown spots or wounds, and I found myself in suspense, waiting for a decision to be made, waiting for the verdict. 

“What are you making?” 

He glanced up at me, then to his own hands, then turned and faced me completely. 

“Soup.” There was a quality to the word I couldn’t identify. Definitiveness? Straightforwardness? Amusement?

I nodded awkwardly, out of habit, then realized it didn’t feel awkward. Easier, even companionable. “I like soup. What kind? I’m just restocking on basic groceries for the week. Onions and stuff.”

He smiled fully then, like my short overview had been a marvelous gift, and nodded back at me.  
“ I am making a coconut milk soup. It is called tom ka gai, and I will be making it vegetarian.” Surety. That was it. 

It had been cool outside, but he wasn’t wearing much. Shorts and a shirt. Flip flops. The shirt was the color of coconut milk, and I felt overdressed in my need for more warmth. 

“How?” I asked. “I thought tom ka gai was like, specifically a chicken coconut soup. That’s delicious, though, good choice.” 

He didn’t answer the question, but gave another nod. “Thank you.” 

We started walking towards the canned foods. A woman bumped past Siddhartha, grumbling about slow walkers, and then stopped, settled, and apologized. I watched his slow, slight nod like it was a butterfly hatching.

We made it through the stream of shoppers to our aisle. Siddhartha positioned himself in front of the coconut milks and started reading labels.

“What do you think I should do?” He asked softly.

I started a bit. It was easy to forget he was actually, physically, there. 

“Oh, uh… We usually get Thai Kitchen, the one with the red label, the organic one.” I pointed it out, but he shook his head. Long, dark hair shook with it.

“That is not what I meant. I meant about the chicken. How should I make a chicken soup without chicken?” It was a true question. 

“I… I’d have to think. Definitely tofu for protein and chunks. Something else for flavor.” 

He frowned. “What is tofu?” 

It took me a minute. “Oh… Oh! You… don’t know what tofu is. Right. That makes sense. It’s made from soybeans. Here, I’ll show you.” 

A slight nod and smile. He placed two cans of Thai Kitchen Regular Organic coconut milk in the basket, next to a handful of herbs and limes and a bag of rice. 

We walked to the coolers, and I picked out one of the plastic packages of tofu for him. On our way there, a couple bickering in front of the spices stopped and looked around, as if waking up. A fussing toddler became quiet and began to yawn. A teenage boy relaxed his shoulders.

We started back to the produce section. I led him to the mushrooms. 

“These will be good for flavor for the soup. Maybe some enokitakes, or shiitakes, or even portobellos. You might want to add extra oil, as well, since there’s no chicken fat going in.” 

“It will not be chicken soup.” 

“Well. No. Not unless you want to put chicken in it, or, well, we could probably find you some wacky chicken-flavored chemicals.” Was he dumb? There was a moment of silence, and then,

“You have found it,’ whispered Siddhartha. “Where am I?”

He looked funny. A bit… transparent.

“The grocery store. New Seasons. You’re making soup. Wait, what’s going on?” He was actually fading, expanding, losing form, losing control…

No.

That was just me, human, confused. Siddhartha, grocery store, flip flop, tom ka gai Siddhartha, was as corporeal as ever. And simultaneously, he was see-through, larger than life, touching each last person in the building and on the block and in the city. I could see him, see the effects of his presence. The toddler was asleep. The couple were holding hands. The woman was smiling at the cashier. The boy had really good posture. 

“You’re everywhere,” I whispered back, and he grinned. “What did I find?” I asked. “You said I found something.”

“Me.”

“You? What, in the mushroom shelf?”

“I am human, I cannot have impossible soup.” I was getting confused, so I stopped talking and just thought about that. After a minute, I smiled, sheepishly. 

“I really don’t think you’re dumb.” 

He seemed to rise up a little, tilt forward like the whole world was tilting forward. 

“But I am!” He insisted, smiling, face alight. “I am dumb! I am human! So are you!” 

Infected with a smile, childishly excited at nothing, I giggled at him. 

“This is my favorite sweater,” I admitted, and he looked at it like butterflies were taking flight from the wool, and somehow, I wasn’t worrying about anything. 

The End


End file.
